Thursday, December 10, 2009

Picnic by the lake

We've been so busy (and tired) this year that we haven't had much time to catch up with friends. So we invited several groups of friends to a picnic in Weston Park last Sunday. It was a perfect late afternoon, hot but with a beautiful cooling breeze coming up off the lake. Romily and Tristan had a great time grooving around, with Romily taking great delight in physically stopping Tristan from wandering into the ablutions block! She loves that she can pick him up and move him and he seems to find it amusing, so we don't intervene too much. We know we're fortunate that she's only recently started doing this!Rom buddied up with Charlie and they spent an hour or so climbing on the rope climbing rig in the park. Let's just say that both Romily and Tristan slept very well on Sunday night (Tristan still woke up several times, of course, but what's new?)I actually baked some yummy treats for our picnic, which we complemented with some lovely Croser bubbly. You'll find the recipes for the muffins and zucchini slice below. They are perfect picnic fare.

Banana-Choc-Coconut Muffins

This is my own recipe and it’s pretty much failproof. It’s also very flexible. You can chuck in whatever you like!

60g butter, melted2 eggs½ cup of milk1 small tub of vanilla yoghurt (I use Vaalia toddler but you can use anything on hand)2 very ripe bananas, mashed2 cups SR flour½ cup of shredded coconut½ cup of caster sugar½ to 1 cup of choc bits (milk, white or dark, or a combination)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut. In a small jug, combine butter, eggs, milk and yoghurt. Make a well in the dry ingredients and tip in the milk mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon. Do not beat or over-mix – this will make for tough muffins. Once just combined, tip in choc bits and stir in gently.

Spoon mixture into cases – fill to ¾ full. Sprinkle with extra shredded coconut. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are starting to go brown on top. Do not overcook!

Zucchini Slice

This recipe is from the Homemade recipe book that I have blogged about several times.

Place all ingredients, in the above order, in a large bowl and combine well. Pour into a greased slice tray and bake for 30-40 minutes. Cool in tin, turn out when cold and cut into slices. Serve with a garden salad, if desired. Yum.

2 comments:

My 3 yr old loves to pick up my 1 year old, my 1 yr old does not like being picked up by the 3 yr old though, It always ends with the 3 yr old in tears lol!mmm thanks for the recipes they look really yummy! I will definitely be giving the muffin recipe a go!